Commentary and analysis to persuade people to become socialist and to act for themselves, organizing democratically and without leaders, to bring about a world of common ownership and free access. We are solely concerned with building a movement of socialists for socialism. We are not reformists with a programme of policies to patch up capitalism.

Wednesday, December 31, 2014

IMF Austerity Helped Fuel Ebola Crisis

In a report published online last week in The Lancet Global
Health the four researchers, professors from three British universities, accuse
the International Monetary Fund (IMF) through its strict lending policies of
contributing to the Ebola crisis. "A major reason why the Ebola outbreak
spread so rapidly was the weakness of healthcare systems in the region, and it
would be unfortunate if underlying causes were overlooked," said lead
author Alexander Kentikelenis. "Policies advocated by the IMF have
contributed to under-funded, insufficiently staffed, and poorly prepared health
systems in the countries with Ebola outbreaks."

Kentikelenis and co-authors explain that IMF's economic
reform programs forced reduced government spending, IMF may put caps on funds
for government wages, including healthcare professionals, and it pushes for
decentralization of healthcare systems, which "can make it difficult to
mobilize coordinated, central responses to disease outbreaks. All these effects
are cumulative, contributing to the lack of preparedness of health systems to
cope with infectious disease outbreaks and other emergencies," they write.

Other observers have also made a connection between such
economic policies and the deadly outbreak. Emira Woods, a Liberian director at
ThoughtWorks, a technology firm committed to social and economic justice, in an
interview with Common Dreams explained "A crisis of the proportion we've
seen since the beginning of the Ebola catastrophe shows this model has
failed." While years of war played a role in weakening public systems, it
is the "war against people, driven by international financial
institutions" that is largely responsible for decimating the public health
care system, eroding wages and conditions for health care workers, and fueling the
crisis sweeping West Africa today, said Woods.

Even the World Health Organization, which is tasked by the
United Nations with directing international responses to epidemics,
acknowledges the detrimental impact these policies have had on public health systems.
"In health, [structural adjustment programs] affect both the supply of
health services (by insisting on cuts in health spending) and the demand for
health services (by reducing household income, thus leaving people with less
money for health)," states the organization. "Studies have shown that
SAPs policies have slowed down improvements in, or worsened, the health status
of people in countries implementing them. The results reported include worse
nutritional status of children, increased incidence of infectious diseases, and
higher infant and maternal mortality rates. Depressing peoples' access to
healthcare greatly increases their susceptibility to all diseases and
pathologies.

The important thing to remember is that the destruction of
the healthcare systems in these countries has not been accidental; it has been
deliberate. This epidemic was as much a man-made disaster as a natural one. Austerity
kills. Capitalism kills